Geraint Thomas: Rider Profile

Geraint Thomas career profile
Geraint Thomas picked up cycling with the Maindy Flyers in Wales; taking the club’s newcomers’ track record was an inspiration to continue, which he did racing across the country with the club. After winning two national titles as a teenager, Thomas progressed rapidly going on to silver in the points race at the European track championships.

The Welshman joined the British Cycling Olympic Academy in 2005, after impressing many with his 2004 Junior Paris-Roubaix win riding for the South East centre of excellence.

Thomas turned professional on the road with the Barloworld team in 2007, where he rode and finished his first Tour de France. Thomas is a strong road rider but his perhaps an even greater talent on the track, having been part of the gold-medal winning team pursuit squad at both the World Championships and the Olympics in 2008.

After a busy 2008 spent preparing for the Beijing Games, Thomas’s attention returned to the road in 2009, where he continued with Barloworld.

At the end of 2009, Thomas took part in the Track World Cup round in Manchester velodrome. The previous week he has clocked a time of 4-18 in the individual pursuit at the track to become national pursuit champion. He bettered that during the qualifying round by posting the fastest pursuit time since the ‘superman’ position was banned in 1996 – 4-15.015. After winning that gold, Thomas was then part of the victorious GB team pursuit quartet and joined the fledgling Sky outfit soon after.

Thomas had a breakthrough year on the road in 2010 with Team Sky, enjoying a spell in the top ten of the Tour de France and in the white jersey of best young rider after placing second on stage three. Later that year, Thomas lead home a Sky 1-2-3 at the British road race national championships to take the win.

Thomas started 2011 strongly, with a second place in Dwars Door Vlaanderen in the spring and an overall win at Bayern-Rundfahrt in Germany, Thomas’s first major stage race overall win.

Switching focus from road to the track ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games, Thomas’s efforts were rewarded with team pursuit gold in London.

In 2013, Thomas begun his campaign very strongly with a stage win and third overall at the Tour Down Under, and played an injury-plagued roll in helping Chris Froome to the Tour de France yellow jersey.

Victory in the 2014 edition of Bayern Rundfahrt and the Commonwealth Games road race was followed in 2015 by an overall win in the Volta ao Algarve and his biggest win to date, the E3 Harelbeke.